


Axolotl

by Control_Room



Category: Bendy and the Ink Machine
Genre: Alternate Dimensions, Angst, Babies, Gen, Gift Fic, Magic, Sickness, The Ink Machine, jaded
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-29
Updated: 2019-09-29
Packaged: 2020-11-07 19:26:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20822561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Control_Room/pseuds/Control_Room
Summary: They were similar, weren't they?





	Axolotl

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BallofYarn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BallofYarn/gifts).

> another very random au

Johan ran as fast as he could, slamming into the barrier between worlds over and over, banging on the walls binding him. He had to stop Jekyll. He had seen into the other worlds and knew how greatly the man would regret his actions.

With a scream, he pounded against the invisible barrier. A glimmering crack appeared. His eyes brightened, and he tore at it, and managed to rip it enough to pull his way through. 

He felt his strength ebb as he landed on the floor of Hyde’s ink machine room, and he coughed and hacked, feeling his… illness bubble in his chest. He hoped that the pathogen could not spread through dimensions, otherwise, he simply doomed another world. Sobbing footsteps approached, and Johan forced his coughs to become silent, tears welling in his eyes as his lungs burned and his throat constricted. He edged his way to a wall, pulling himself up, catching his breath. Jekyll, carrying MJ’s weakening form, stumbled past him.

He stretched out a hand to put it on Jekyll’s shoulder.

“Don’t.” he managed to say.

Jekyll spun around, the skirt of Mary Jane’s night dress twirling around him. Her eyes were shut tight, breathing slow and choppy. Jekyll’s tears dripped onto her.

“Don’t…” Johan repeated, going onto his knees, his voice high and pleading. “Please. I can heal her. Just don’t do this to her, t-to yourself.”

“Johan….” Jekyll said, his voice empty and reverberating. Mary Jane’s eyes batted open, and her eyes landed on the partially blue haired man. “Uncle Jo…?”

“Please.”

Jekyll looked at his daughter, then at the man kneeling before him.

Would he not have given anything to heal her?

No, his mind hissed. Stick to something you know will work. Stick to yourself.

But his heart murmured, trust him. He loves Mary Jane, too. Trust him.

Jekyll looked to the ink machine, and felt his skin crawl. MJ’s heart beat against his chest. How could he take that away from her, from his own daughter? All he had left of Charlotte? How could he? How dare he even think of such a fate?

“Fine,” he closed his eyes. He sensed Johan rising, hearing his clothes rustle. Slender and long arms wrapped around him, and gently took Mary Jane from his arms. The hug seemed to linger, and a weighted seemed to evaporate from his shoulders. Jekyll’s eyes opened, and he saw Johan looking at him expectantly, holding MJ carefully and lovingly. Jekyll swallowed. “Well?”

Johan nodded, and summoned a bed with his weakening strength, cautiously setting MJ on it. He sat beside her, and closed her eyes with two fingers. Her breathing relaxed and became even. Johan glanced up at Jekyll, nervously, twisting away so the older would not see him pull out the small swiss knife, slicing the tips of both middle fingers, and then gently tapping each globule of drawn blood onto Mary Jane’s temples. He leaned close to her, and whispered a soft song as he manipulated his blood to merge with hers, and searched her body from within for the malady. He began to tremble, then shake, as his strength dropped away, faster and faster. But he continued to heal her, forming the bits and flecks of illness into a new being, a good thing, a darling sheep. She began forming in his lap as he went on with his work, a jelly bean baby glowing gently with the bright sparks of Mary Jane’s soul that ebbed into her. Ivy soon yawned, much to Jekyll’s shock, and Mary Jane opened her eyes, and smiled. 

“I feel much better now, papa,” she told Jekyll, pushing herself up in the bed. Jekyll thought he might faint from joy. Ivy yawned again, and Mary Jane looked at her. “Oh! Goodness! Well, aren’t you adorable!” 

Johan smiled with fatigue, passing the little sheep from his lap to Mary Jane’s. 

“I can’t believe it,” Jekyll gasped, pushing up his glasses, eyes wide. “Why, if it isn't Ivy! And Mary Jane, are you sure you’re better?”

He pressed a hand to her forehead. Good. Held her hand. Soft, no trembling. Put a head to her chest. Steady, thrumming heartbeat.

“Papa, I’m fine,” she laughed, hugging his head. He hugged her back tightly. “Uncle Jo made me feel all better.”

“That’s right!” Jekyll snapped to reality, looking at her, then turned to look at the young man beside them. “How can I ever…”

Ink dripped from Johan’s lips.

“Thank…”

His eyes were dull, and hazy.

“You….”

Jekyll vaulted over the bed, barely managing to get to Johan in time to stop him from falling flat on the floor in a dead faint.

Horror welled up in Jekyll.

“What did you do?” he demanded from Johan in a whisper. Johan’s eyes pried open, and he smiled slightly, leaning his head against Jekyll’s chest, nodding into a sleep. Jekyll shook him awake, and he pouted at him. “Johan! What did you do!?”

“I healed her,” he wheezed, ink bubbling out of his throat. He coughed violently, smiling up at Jekyll softly. “And I’ll heal you, too. Promise me you’ll take care of the girls, and get a solid, steady job, without any of the, um… bloodshed, okay?”

“Uncle Jo? What are you talking about?” Mary Jane hugged Ivy tightly, confused. Johan looked at her. “... Uncle Jo…?”

“Love you, MJ, Ivy, so much,” he murmured, and gripped Jekyll’s arm tightly. “Try not to move too much, okay Da?”

“Joha-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!”

Jekyll felt his skin burn, and the constant hissing in his mind turned to shrieking, his head feeling like it would tear apart into thousands of millions of little pieces. 

God, what was happening to him?

He felt Hyde tear at his mind, trying to keep a hold on him, but was torn away.

He gasped, feeling MJ’s small hands on his shoulders, shaking him intensely, calling, “Papa, stop it, papa, you’re hurting yourself!”

His hands eased from the top of his head.

Silence.

Blissful, peaceful silence.

Mary Jane’s eyes looked at him, big and worried. Ivy’s as well. The two gave him a great big hug.

  
  


A cough. 

Another, and another. The three turned to look at Johan, who gasped and panted on his hands and knees, choking on ink and blood. Horns curled around his head, inky and dark, dying tufts of white and blue hair black, grey, and indigo.

Bright, magical, unearthly purple eyes.

“Johan…?” Jekyll asked, reaching toward him with one hand, the other arm holding Mary Jane and Ivy tightly. The thing that shivered on the floor, dripping ink, looked up at him with a slight whine, shirking away. Their eyes met, and a big goofy smile spread across the being’s face. He leaned up against Jekyll’s hand, giggling childishly, then coughed, flinching away.

Jekyll stared.

The thing stared back, and giggled again, a hacking, chuckling, wrong giggle.

“This would’ve been her,” he said, rasping, glitching, wavering. He giggled again. Silence resided, aside from the small gaps of gasping giggles. “Woulda been you.”

Something seemed so… fitting.

Jekyll hated the feeling.

His arms tightened around his daughters.

An anger filled Johan’s eyes, turning them red.

“Go!” he ordered, standing, looming above them. “Never come back! Close this place, hide it, sell it to be d-destroyed! Go! G-Go!”

Jekyll stumbled back.

Johan coughed again and again, doubling over. He looked up at Jekyll pleadingly.

“Go…” he whispered, head butting him gently. “I love you, Da.”

Jekyll ran out as fast as he could, whether out of obedience or fear, he could not tell. 

Once he was at home, panting and shaking, his girls clinging to him, he slid down the door.

“Go to bed, stardust, moonlight,” he said in a voice that did not feel like his own. They nodded, and slipped away to Mary Jane’s room. He would have to buy a bunk bed, he dully realized in the back of his mind. Huh. He touched his face, finding thin traces of dirty tears. 

The last thing Johan, for it was Johan, it could not be anything else, it was Johan, the last thing he said to him, it rang in his mind, over and over.

And he wept.

He wept, and cried, and did not move till morning light, when Henry pulled the door open, and he fell out against his brother’s knees.

Henry tried to ask him what was wrong, and then, fearing the worst, peered into Mary Jane’s room, and upon seeing Ivy and Mary Jane there together, his mouth dropped open in shock.

He looked down at the exhausted appearing Jekyll.

Henry helped him to his feet, and immediately was enveloped in a hug.

“Johan, Johan,” Joey moaned, his tears still dropping down his face like stars. “What did you do, what did you do….”

Henry was confused, but still hugged his brother back tightly. 

“He’s gone,” Joey lamented, shaking as Henry carefully led him to his room, setting him in his bed. “Gone, gone…”

“Calm down, Joey,” Henry instructed, thinking it must have been about a friend of Joey’s, maybe one of their employees. “It’s okay, right? We still have the studio, right?”

Joey shook his head slowly.

Close it down, Johan had told him. Destroy it.

But his heart could not bear the thought. And what about Johan? There had to be a way.

“What do you mean, no?” Henry asked cautiously, tilting his head as he tried to push Joey back into bed. “You’re delirious. We can talk about this in the morning. Well, later morning.”

“Barricade the ink machine,” Joey said, almost in a daze. “Lock it away. Don’t let anyone see it. Block it off, hide it, cover it up. Make sure no one ever finds out about it or even gets a reason to suspect it even ever existed.”

“Um… okay?” Henry nodded slightly, confused why Joey would want to hide away his prided machine, wondering where Ivy came from. “Will do.”

Jekyll’s determination waxed.

He would bring Johan back, no matter what it would take. 


End file.
